UPTON
SINCLAIR

California
was was hit particularly hard by the Great Depression. Sinclair said,
"California is 650 miles from North to South, much too big for one
state," (I, Governor 31) and, thus, by size alone was at a disadvantage
for relief efforts. Farmers were producing more food than people could
afford to buy and manufacturing jobs were scarce as demand for output
diminished. These factors, among others, were followed by the massive
influx labor from other states as well as cheaper immigrant labor. No
one hitherto had an answer in California, and the New Deal seemed a
long shot with negligible assistance from its alphabet soup a seemingly
longer
shot. The time was right for Sinclair's message, and to many who heard
it, it made good sense. And, now that his Socialist message was under
the
moniker of the Democratic Party, it seemed just right, if not
all-American to many Californians.

When Sinclair hit the campaign trail, he was armed not with a new deal
for the people, but with a new way of living and doing business:
production-for-use. Since the stock market crash of 1929, many had
become skeptical of capitalism, especially with the majority of the
wealth in the hands of the few. Now, Sinclair proposed to mount a
return to agrarianism, in so much as to duplicate the success of his
Helicon House experiment in New Jersey. He had seen informal
cooperatives working with success in California and they served as an
inspiration to his message. These pragmatic cooperatives consisted of
members who collected
discarded fruits and vegetables, and then distributed them to other
members in return for labor from the recipient (Hackett 2). In essence,
these cooperatives were functioning in much the same way as Helicon
House, and the cooperative members were employing Socialist
principles though it was not being called that.

Sinclair, outfitted with his experiences at Helicon House and with the
California cooperatives, set out to tool an answer to the desperate
economic situation around him. He outlined his proposal first by giving
it the name End Poverty in California, or EPIC for short, and then by
setting a firm foundation for the movement by announcing "Twelve
Principles of EPIC" in his 1933 publication, I, Governor of California and
How I Ended Poverty: A Look to the Future:

1. God created the natural
wealth of the earth for us of all men, not a few2. God created
men to seek their own welfare, not that of masters.3. Private
ownership of tools, a basis of freedom when tools are simple becomes a
basis of enslavement when tools are complex.4. Autocracy in
industry cannot exist along Democracy in government.5. When some men
live without working, other men are working without living.6. The existence
of luxury in the presence of poverty and destitution is contrary to
good morals and sound public policy.7. The present
depression is one of abundance, not scarcity.8. The cause of
the trouble is that a small class has the wealth while the rest has the
debts.9. It is
contrary to common sense that men should starve because they raise too
much food. 10. The
destruction of food or other wealth or the limitation of production is
economic insanity.11. The remedy
is to give the workers access to the means of production and let them
produce for themselves, not for others.12. This change
can be brought about by the majority of the people and this is the
American way.(I, Governor 10)